Action Plan

A task force has been established to develop and promote anti-racism training for faculty, staff, and students to include the following actions:

• Continuing the self- and group-study started in summer 2020 (reading and discussing Kendi’s How to be an Anti-Racist) and promoting anti-racist self-training, Book/Podcast Clubs, and department and SPHHS sponsored workshops;

• Adding anti-racism, identification of implicit bias, and training in cultural humility to our orientation for students, staff, and faculty Increasing awareness of how our professions have contributed to systemic racism in schools, healthcare, prisons, and other settings, and how we as professionals can cease being bystanders and actively oppose institutional racism;

• Holding internal workshops on topics such as training in recognition and rapid response to microaggressions, African American English and linguistic variation (with support from colleagues in Linguistics), and workshops on anti-racism for local area SLPs and Audiologists in our annual Professional Development Conference;

• Lending our voices to advocate for anti-racism and cultural humility training as a requirement for professional certification and continuing education

In a recent demographic profile on race and ethnicity, only 8.3% of American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association (ASHA) members self-identified as a racial minority, and only 5.8% as Hispanic or Latino (ASHA, 2019). While our numbers have been improving, our department has contributed to this appalling lack of diversity by not taking active steps to admit graduate cohorts that reflect the diversity of the clients we serve. We acknowledge that diversifying the student body will strengthen the program and our profession, and we commit to and have already initiated, the following actions:

• Dropping the requirement for GREs from graduate school admissions; 

• Implementing and evaluating a holistic approach to reviewing applications;

• Increasing opportunities for fee waivers. Interested students can learn more about our current fee waiver program.

Many factors influence the low rate of admission/acceptance of BIPOC students into our undergraduate and graduate programs. We acknowledge that increasing the diversity of our faculty is a long-term priority. In the short-term, a task force on Recruitment and Outreach is committed to the following actions:

• Developing and implementing outreach to students from early in the pipeline through college to increase awareness of our fields of study and professions. These will include Science Nights at local area schools with more diverse student populations, outreach to local community colleges, Upward Bound, and other college prep programs;

• Increasing outreach and mentoring programs to undergraduates on our campus about the advantages of graduate education and how to get there;

• Increasing opportunities for scholarships, in addition to the existing Harry & Charlena Seymour Scholarship for Diversity;

• Increasing the presence of BIPOC images on our website and in clinic brochures to better reflect the diversity of clients we serve and of students we seek to admit

Increasing recruitment to diversify our student body must be met with actions to retain BIPOC students, including meaningful actions that demonstrate support and instill a sense of belonging, such as:

• Providing pre-orientation support;

• Establishing mentoring programs for BIPOC students;

• Connecting BIPOC students with existing mentoring programs through the National Black Association for Speech-Language and Hearing (NBASLH), the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA), and other organizations;

• Joining or supporting the newly formed Northeast chapter of NBASLH;

• Defining expectations around zero tolerance for microaggressions;

• Inviting BIPOC professionals to present in our classes and professional development conference

In addition to courses with a dedicated multicultural focus, undergraduate and graduate courses in the department must infuse a diversity/equity/inclusion perspective throughout the curriculum. Actions will include:

• Including diversity, equity, and inclusion as a pillar of professional ethics;

• Bringing in outside consultants with expertise in teaching about cultural and linguistic diversity to lead a winter workshop for faculty on infusing diverse perspectives into our courses;

• Revising clinical materials and course content to include a diversity of perspectives;

• Continuing to increase the diversity of clients treated at the Center for Speech, Language, and Hearing clinic;

• Developing a Graduate Multicultural Certificate in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences that provides more in-depth academic and clinical training in multiculturalism and diversity.

We acknowledge that the only way to advance these ideas is to promote right action, including bringing together voices that are as diverse as possible from within our department and across the university. Our commitment to action is dedicated to global changes that will move us towards a just and equitable future for all, while acknowledging that our strength lies in promoting and sustaining local changes wherever possible. To this end, we formed a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinating Committee that incorporates voices from faculty, staff, and students across all levels. In addition, task forces were created to initiate, implement, and sustain the above actions (including a task force to draft this Anti-Racism Statement and Action Plan). In support of these actions, we commit to:

• Creating a webpage to share the Anti-Racism Statement and Action Plan, with links to other campus opportunities for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training, actions and events, general University resource links, professional SLP and AuD-specific resources, student-specific resources, and relevant faculty and student projects aligned with our Action Plan;

• Maintaining a blog site with more frequently changing news, a calendar of events, and upcoming actions, and sending out periodic updates to the department; 

• Linking the webpage and blog site to our department website; 

• Meeting periodically to discuss progress and keep each other accountable; 

• Holding an online Open Forum for any member of the department at least once per semester;

• Establishing a Google form for any member of the department to anonymously share their feedback and provide suggestions for additional action steps

We recognize that the stigma surrounding the word "disorders" is harmful to many of our constituents and to many of the people we work with, including, but not limited to, the Deaf community, the neurodiverse community, and the transgender community. In addition, we recognize that much of the research, teaching, and clinical work done in our department is basic science focused on understanding the nature of speech, language, and hearing among diverse communities.

Therefore, the faculty and students in the department requested a change of the name of our department. We are now the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences.